Interchange 2 Fourth Edition Audio

[Louann Mauffray]

TheFed will be allowed to issue final rules July 21 trimming the average 44 cents that banks charge for each debit card transaction. That fee, typically 1 to 2 percent of each purchase, produces $16 billion in annual revenue for banks and credit card companies, the Fed estimates.

Victorious merchants said the lowered fees should let them drop prices, but banks said they could be forced to boost charges for things like checking accounts to make up for lost earnings, and each side challenged the other's claims.

In a contentious meeting in Vienna on Wednesday, the 12-nation group failed to agree on new production targets. That sets the stage for higher prices for oil and gasoline later this year as global demand for oil rises faster than supplies.

Saudi Arabia lobbied for an increase in output, which likely would have likely lowered oil prices. But countries like Iran resisted, arguing that oil supplies are adequate to meet demand and current prices are appropriate.

Apple bought $17.5 billion in chips last year, surpassing computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. as the largest consumer, IHS iSuppli said. That was an increase of 80 percent from the year before, reflecting Apple's continuing sales surge.

An iPhone contains about $80 worth of chips, according to iSuppli. The chips include the central processor that acts as the brains of the device, radio chips that let it talk to cell towers and the audio chip that converts the owner's voice into a stream of data.

The video was posted Tuesday and was viewed almost 200,000 times before it was removed later by the person who put it up. By Wednesday, a Facebook page called Boycott Delta for Soldiers had sprung up, and the airline was backpedaling and apologizing.

Initially, Delta apologized to the soldiers but didn't change its policy. As the storm of online complaints grew, the airline posted a blog Wednesday saying fourth bags will now be free for troops traveling in economy class and five bags will be free for those traveling in business class.

CBS shows twice as many ads per show on its website as it did last year. The CW network shows four times as many. Dozens of shows from major cable networks now carry as many ads online as they do on TV. More shows will follow soon.

Good afternoon or good morning to those of you to the West. Welcome to the Overcoming the Challenges of Congestion Pricing webinar series. My name is Jennifer Symoun and I will moderate today's webinar, which will focus Integrating Transit with Congestion Pricing and Increasing Congestion Pricing Acceptance. Please be advised that today's seminar is being recorded.

Before I go any further, I do want to let those of you who are calling into the teleconference for the audio know that you need to mute your computer speakers or else you will be hearing your audio over the computer as well.

Today we'll have three presenters - Brian Pessaro, Senior Research Associate at the University of South Florida Center for Urban Transportation; Adam Harrington, Assistant Director of Route and System Planning, for Metro Transit in Minneapolis, MN; and Chris Burke, I-15 Program Manager, for the San Diego Association of Governments. We'll always have a brief introduction from Myron Swisher of SAIC.

Today's webinar will last 90 minutes. We'll take questions following each presentation and then take questions at the end if time allows. If during the presentations you think of a question, you can type it into the chat area. Please make sure you send your question to "Everyone" and indicate which presenter your question is for. Presenters will be unable to answer your questions during their presentations, but I will start off the question and answer session with the questions typed into the chat box. If we are unable to get through all of the questions in the time allotted we will get written responses from the presenters and send them out with the follow up information.

The PowerPoint presentations used today are available for download from the file download box in the lower right corner of your screen. I would also like to remind you that this session is being recorded. The recording, presentations, and a transcript will be posted to the Tolling and Pricing web site within the next few weeks and I will send out a notice when they are available.

The early HOV to HOT lane conversions, many of them met with resistance from the transit community: that's both local transit agencies, where the project is taking place; environmental groups; federal transit administration; and going back urban mass transportation authority, some of those projects were built under full grant agreements with those US DOT agencies. They are concerned about a few things, primarily losing the travel time advantage that they had gained through adding HOV bus lanes. They doubted the ability of the HOT lanes to actually manage traffic once we allowed single occupancy vehicles on their lanes with a toll. They doubted our ability to manage those tolls properly to maintain full travel speeds. Their comment was, once we get cars filling up the lanes, we will not be able to get them off. The concept was difficult to describe in the abstract. It was met with a lot of resistance.

Today we will hear about a few projects that are 180 degrees from that experience and show some of the significant synergies between transit operations and manage lanes and congestion pricing projects. So with that, Jennifer, I'll turn it back to you.

Thank you for the intro. Now we will start with our first presenter, who is Brian Pessaro, Senior Research Associate at the University of South Florida Center for Urban Transportation. Brian, you can go ahead.

Thank you for tuning in. As Jennifer and Myron mentioned, today's topic is on integrating transit with congestion pricing. I'm going to talk about two cities that have done just that: Miami and Minneapolis. Miami with its 1-95 express lanes and Minneapolis with its MnPass lanes on the 35W.

Both of these projects were funded by US DOT's Urban Partnership Agreement program. For those of you who are not familiar with this partnership agreement and its sister program, the Congestion Reduction Demonstration Program, it is a congestion relief program that is sponsored by the US DOT to the tune of $1.3 billion. In 2006, the US DOT sought applications from cities for congestion reduction strategies that used what they called the "Four T's": Tolling, Transit, Telecommuting, and Technology.

They made awards to six cities: Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Miami. All of them, with the exception Seattle and San Francisco, implemented HOV to HOT lane conversion. In San Francisco, they are doing dynamic pricing for their downtown parking, and that program is called SF park. In Seattle, they are implementing tolls across all of the lanes on the state road 2025 bridge.

I want to focus on Minneapolis in Miami. These are the only two that have been operational for several years. Atlanta just began their toll lane in October and do not have enough data on it yet. Minneapolis in Miami have been in operation for a few years.

Let's start with Miami. The Miami UPA involved converting the existing HOV lane on I-95 to an HOT lane as well as adding a second HOT lane. It was done in three phases. Phase 1A is in yellow. It opened up express lanes in the northbound direction from downtown Miami in December 2008. Then in January of 2010 Phase 1B opened, and that was in the northbound direction. The next phase is going to be Phase 2, shown in a red. It is scheduled to open up in mid-2014. It will extend the lanes 13 miles north up by I-595. There are two HOT lanes in each direction and they are barrier-separated from regular traffic by plastic poles. There is no intermediate access point; you can only enter at the termini. Prices change every 15 minutes based on traffic in the express lane. To use it for free, you have to be a registered three person or more carpool. Motorcycles and hybrid vehicles can also use express lanes for free.

Prior to the project, there was one express bus that used HOV lane on I-95. That was the Route 95X. During Phase 1 there were two additional routes added. They were the Pines Blvd. Express, and the Dade-Broward Express. Phase 1 also added 500 parking spaces at the Golden Glades Park-and-Ride Lot. They also added transit signal priority at 50 intersections along Pines Blvd. and Broward Blvd.

The Minneapolis UPA project is on Interstate 35W. It involved both an HOV to HOT conversion as well as the addition of new HOT lanes. It runs from Burnsville to downtown Minneapolis. The project opened in segments. The Northern and Southern segments opened in September 2009 and then this middle segment opened in November 2010. There is one HOT lane in each direction, with the exception of the Northern segment which is called a price dynamic shoulder lane of PDSL. These are northbound only. Unlike Miami, where the lanes are very separated, these lanes are separated by stripes. Like Miami, the tolls fluctuate based on traffic in the lanes. It has multiple entry and exit points. Unlike Miami, which has a 3+ HOV requirement, in Minneapolis it's only a 2+.

In the non-peak periods, the managed lanes are open to all lanes of traffic with the exception of PDSL segment. In the non-peak hours, that reverts to being a shoulder. The transit improvements included additional bus service on the 35W. That is both north and south of downtown. During the presentation you will hear me refer to 35W South and 35W North; 35W South is the portion that is south of downtown, and 35W North is the portion that is north of downtown.

The HOT lanes are in the 35W South portion. The UPA project also included six new or expanded park-and-ride lots. It included a transit bypass lane on Cedar Avenue. It included expansion of contra-flow bus-only lanes in downtown Minneapolis. It expanded from one bus lane to two bus lanes. It also included the provision of ITS technology. Specifically, real-time travel signs along 35W, next bus arrival signs in downtown, and a lane guidance system on Cedar Avenue.

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